Missionary

Family and friends!!

First off congrats to Henry for getting into BYU. That is so awesome and I am so excited for you. BYU is so much fun; I know you are going to love it there!!

I am a real missionary now, hahah. So this week has been awesome. My companions name is Elder Kemp. He is a really nice guy and is helping me with Spanish a lot. He tries to incorporate me into as much of the lesson as he can. He is from Apple Valley and wants to be a writer. He doesn’t like sports, or anything athletic, or physical for that matter, so that is my only...well...idk what to call it, downfall with my comp I guess. But i am going to get him to like it. It’s driving me nuts not to be able to go play soccer or rugby with everyone in the ward. So we are going to work on that.

Anyways!! So this past week I left for the mission home at 430 am. My plane landed around 9 and we just had orientation the whole day I was here. Then the next day we woke up and went to get a physical. They took our blood, pee, and checked our teeth, that’s about it. Then we came back and met our comps. We then went to the bus terminal and waited for about 4 hours. Then we got on a bus and left for my area. THE AREA OF SALTO!! THE BEST AREA IN THE WHOLE MISSION!!! I was so pumped when I found out that was where I was serving. Everyone says it is the best here. So we hopped on the bus and took a 6 hour ride to Salto. We got here at like 12:30 at night and just went straight home and went to bed.

So, Salto is awesome. Seriously I am so pumped to be out here. We have a lot of investigators we are working with. The first person we went to teach was Tamara. She is 15 years old and is in a part member family. Her little sister Caroline is looking at being baptized too. We taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ. So that was my first lesson. But after that we went and taught a few more families. I want to talk about this one lady we are teaching though. Her name is Claudia. She is about 29 and super nice. She has been taking the lessons for a while but has never committed to a date for baptism. This past lesson we had with her on Saturday was such a testimony builder. She explained to us that she has been having throat problems and has been really sick with different stuff. Elder Kemp explained a little bit about priesthood blessings and she asked if she could have one. I was so nervous because I had never given a blessing in Spanish, but she was fine if I did my part in English. So that was a relief. I anointed her and elder Kemp offered the blessing. The spirit was soooo strong. After the blessing she was crying and said that she felt the spirit surround her. We then went on with her lesson. We talked a lot about baptism. After the lesson we asked her if she would prepare herself to be baptized this week, on Saturday. She said no, then we asked her why and she said she didn’t feel ready. We testified that she could be ready and we would be there every step of the way to make her ready. She was still hesitant so we compromised and offered another date this month. She accepted!! It was so awesome! I can’t even explain how stoked I was. It was so rad!! Ah I was on a high for the rest of the day!!

I am so stoked to be out here on my mission. I can’t think of anywhere I would rather be. I know that the Lord has put me here to reach people that have been prepared for me. I can’t wait to get to work every morning.

Thank you all for all of your birthday wishes!! It made my week reading all of them. Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts you send my way.

I know that this church is true and that I have been called to the Lords work. I know that the power of the priesthood is real! The only way to happiness is to live the gospel. I love you all and am so excited to hear from you next week!

Sincerely,

Elder Staffieri

SEE PICTURES BELOW

Dan and his new companion, Elder Kemp